Say what?

I understand “white space” in design. But I’d never thought about white space in my life until I read Sarah Selecky’s post today. She says:

In a short story, a white space is placed between scenes to signal a moment of reflection. It’s there to give you a moment to digest the scene that just finished, and it often makes that last sentence before the space ring out with effect. You can linger there as long as you like to make some sense of what you just read.

The white space lets you linger so you can experience what just happened.